RocksBasil

I was thinking of iatrogenic transmissions, yeah (and prions have been a long term psychological fear of mine, too...so I perhaps crawled too much publicly available information about prions to be a normal person)

I wonder if there are any instances of FFI transmitted through the iatrogenic pathway, and whether it is possible to be distinguished from the typical CJD, and whether iatrogenic prions could become a significant issue for healthcare (more instances of prion diseases due to aging population could possibly mean more contaminated medical equipments, and the possible popularisation of brain-computer interface might give us some problems too) given the difficulty of sterilising prions.

Maybe the sample size is too small for us to know.

Replying toWill the growing deer prion epidemic spread to humans? Why not?

RocksBasil3y

Will the growing deer prion epidemic spread to humans? Why not?

How much do we know about the presence of prion diseases in other animals we frequently consume?

A quick search shows that even fish have some variant of the prion protein and so perhaps all vertebrates pose a theoretical risk of being the carrier of a prion disease, although the species barrier will likely be too high for prions of non-mammal origin.

I'm quite concerned about pigs.

Apparently pigs are considered to be prion resistant as no naturally occurring prion diseases among pigs have been identified, but it is possible to infect them with some prion strains under laboratory conditions.

A prion disease in pigs could be very bad for two reasons:

1: Pigs are often fed... (read more)

Replying toWill the growing deer prion epidemic spread to humans? Why not?

RocksBasil3y

Will the growing deer prion epidemic spread to humans? Why not?

"Infectious" means "transmissible between people". As the name suggests, fatal familial insomnia is a genetic condition. (FFI and the others listed are also prion diseases - the prion just emerges on its own without a source prion and no part of the disease is contagious. This is an interesting trait of prions that could not happen with, say, a disease caused by a virus.)

Can someone catch FFI from coming into contact with the neural tissues of a patient with FFI?

I suspect it's possible that FFI genes cause the patient's body to create prions, but can those prions lead to illness in a person without the FFI gene? If yes, then FFI would still be "infectious" in some sense, I suppose.

Replying toDo policy makers frequently underestimate non-human threats (ie: epidemic, natural disasters, climate change) when compared to threats that are human in nature (ie: military conflict, economic competition, Cold War)?

RocksBasil7y

Do policy makers frequently underestimate non-human threats (ie: epidemic, natural disasters, climate change) when compared to threats that are human in nature (ie: military conflict, economic competition, Cold War)?

I like your last point a lot, does it mean that governments/institutions are more interested in protecting the systems they are in than their constituents? It indeed seems possible and can explain this situation.

I still wonder if such thing happens on an individual level as well, which can help shed some light.

RocksBasil

Epidemic status: A random thought that I don’t feel adequate talking about.
However, I believe this topic must’ve been discussed by somebody somewhere, so if my question reminds you of something similar, please point me to it.

It appears to me that policy makers seem to frequently prioritise dealing with threat posed by human players and neglect threat posed by the natural environment, even when the latter could be demonstrably more worrisome than the former.

Almost as if we are “designed” to deal with hostility from other humans, but are badly equipped to perceive and deal with a hostile natural environment.

I still struggle to express my point, so... (read 316 more words →)

Replying to Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

RocksBasil7y

Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

My assumption is that promises are "vague", playing $99 or $100 both fulfil the promise of giving a high claim close to $100, for which there is no incentive to break.

I think the vagueness stops the race to the bottom in TD, compared to the dollar auction in which every bid can be outmatched by a tiny step without risking going overboard immediately.

I do think I overcomplicated the matter to avoid modifying the payoff matrix.

Replying to Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

RocksBasil7y

Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

"breaking a promise" or "keeping a promise" has no intrinsic utilities here.

What I state is that under this formulation, if the other player believes your promise and plays the best response to your promise, your best response is to keep the promise.

Replying to Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

RocksBasil7y

Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

" in this case, "trust" is equivalent to changing the payout structure to include points for self-image and social cohesion "

I guess I'm just trying to model trust in TD without changing the payoff matrix. The payoff matrix of the "vague" TD works in promoting trust--a player has no incentive breaking a promise.

Replying to Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

RocksBasil7y

Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

This is true. The issue is that the Nash Equilibrium formulation of TD predicts that everyone else will bid $2, which is counter-intuitive and does not confirm empirical findings.

I'm trying to convince myself that the NE formulation in TD is not entirely rational.

Replying to Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

RocksBasil7y

Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

If Alice claims close to $100 (say, $80), Bob gets a higher payoff claiming $100 (getting $78) instead of claiming $2 (getting $4).

Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

RocksBasil

Epistemic status: I think I'm over complicating the matter.

In the Traveller’s Dilemma (call it TD below for short), theoretically the only Nash Equilibrium is to have both players (I'll call them Alice and Bob) reasoning to give the lowest bid (Thanks Stuart_Armstrong for letting me notice this): starting with bidding 100 dollars, Alice would realise she can gain more by claiming 99, so Bob’s best choice is to claim 98, but Alice would also know this and claim 97 and so on…until the race to the bottom finishes at the lowest claim of $2.

Empirically this doesn’t seem to happen, both players would likely be cooperative and bid high. Which... (read 705 more words →)

Replying toCould waste heat become an environment problem in the future (centuries)?

RocksBasil7y

Could waste heat become an environment problem in the future (centuries)?

I would assume Kelvin users to outnumber Fahrenheit users on LW.

My poorly done attempt of formulating a game with incomplete information.

RocksBasil

Epistemic Status: I was bored so I wrote this, forgetting that I was probably making a poor attempt of reinventing some wheel, and realising how I forgot to solve

Motivation: To formulate the stereotypical “Obedience Test” in game theory terms.

The idea came into my mind when I saw the “Three CIA Candidates” joke:

The goal of the test was stated as “To know that you will follow instructions, no matter what.”, and apparently the sure-fire way to know this is to let the subject make a choice of harming themselves (or troubling their conscience) or to disobey command. Obedience is taken as the willingness to put oneself and their... (read 1028 more words →)

Could waste heat become an environment problem in the future (centuries)?

RocksBasil

I have wondered about this scenario for a while, and would like to know what is your opinion about it. Its assumptions are quite specific and probably won't be true, but they do appear realistic enough for me.

(1): Assume that nuclear fusion becomes an available energy source within a couple centuries, it will provide a cheap, plentiful, emission-free, and long lasting source of energy for human activities.

(If this assumption is wrong, we are probably in trouble)

(2): Assume that continued economical/technological development requires increasing energy consumption indefinitely.

(This is probably wrong if we utilise completely new physics in the future, but I don't think this assumption is unlikely)

(3): Assume... (read 341 more words →)

Parable of the flooding mountain range

RocksBasil

A mountaineer is hiking in a mountain range. There is a thick fog so he cannot see beyond a few meters.

It is raining heavily and so the mountain range is being flooded, the mountaineer has to climb to a high place so he won’t get washed away.

He will climb towards the highest point in his sight, and if he sees another higher point he will change his direction towards there.

Now the mountaineer is standing on the top of a hill, and to his knowledge every direction is downwards, and there is no higher peak in sight. He sits on the hilltop, anxiously watching the rain and hearing the water raising.

The... (read 365 more words →)

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

Parable of the flooding mountain range

Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

Could waste heat become an environment problem in the future (centuries)?

Do policy makers frequently underestimate non-human threats (ie: epidemic, natural disasters, climate change) when compared to threats that are human in nature (ie: military conflict, economic competition, Cold War)?

RocksBasil

Do policy makers frequently underestimate non-human threats (ie: epidemic, natural disasters, climate change) when compared to threats that are human in nature (ie: military conflict, economic competition, Cold War)?

Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

My poorly done attempt of formulating a game with incomplete information.

Could waste heat become an environment problem in the future (centuries)?

Parable of the flooding mountain range

RocksBasil

Parable of the flooding mountain range

Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

Could waste heat become an environment problem in the future (centuries)?

Do policy makers frequently underestimate non-human threats (ie: epidemic, natural disasters, climate change) when compared to threats that are human in nature (ie: military conflict, economic competition, Cold War)?

RocksBasil

Do policy makers frequently underestimate non-human threats (ie: epidemic, natural disasters, climate change) when compared to threats that are human in nature (ie: military conflict, economic competition, Cold War)?

Why the empirical results of the Traveller’s Dilemma deviate strongly away from the Nash Equilibrium and seems to be close to the social optimum?

My poorly done attempt of formulating a game with incomplete information.

Could waste heat become an environment problem in the future (centuries)?

Parable of the flooding mountain range